“Sex. com-One domain, two men, 12 years and the brutal battle for the jewel in the internet’s crown”. This is the name of a book written by the investigative journalist Kieren McCarthy. The book outlines the full story behind the battle for Sex.com.
A little history
Sex.com was registered in 1994 by Gary Kreman (Founder of match.com) through Network solutions, but he didn’t developed a site. in 1995 the domain was acquired by Stephen M Cohain through some kind of forgery (Later on it has been proved that Cohain got the assistance of an employee of Network solution to change the ownership). After getting the ownership, Cohain made this as an advertising site and got millions of hits per day.Through advertisement he become a billionaire. By the time Kreman claimed the ownership and proceeded legal action. After fiver year long legal war the verdict of Californian court was in favor of Kreman and Cohain was ordered to pay 25 million $ in April 2001 and Kreman was awarded with an additional compensation of 40 million$ against his loses. Cohain was not agreed with this and appealed against the verdict. He moved all his assets out of US and produced fake documents to declare all his companies are bankrupt. But everything went in to vein all his appeals rejected, he escaped to Mexico and Kreman announced a $50,000 reward of information.
Mexican police arrested Cohain in 05 Dec 2006 against the charges of immigration rules violation and handed over to US authorities. Finally Kreman got the ownership of the domain but in 2006 he sold the domain to Escom LLC for $14 Million, which was the highest ever paid amount for a domain. Now Escom LLC is also selling out this domain through an auction due to the huge financial liabilities.
Details of auction
The bidding open till March 18. Minimum bidding order id $1 million. Like to participate in the bid? click here. The auction will be carried out on March 18 at New york.
Update: The auction has been postponed, fresh dates not yet announced
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